Expletive Delighted!
Studio album by
Fairport Convention
ReleasedAugust 1986
RecordedFebruary, April and May 1986
StudioWoodworm Studios, Barford St. Michael, Oxfordshire
51°59′30″N 1°21′58″W / 51.9918°N 1.3661°W / 51.9918; -1.3661
GenreBritish folk rock
Length35:53
LabelWoodworm
ProducerFairport Convention
Fairport Convention chronology
Gladys' Leap
(1985) 		Expletive Delighted!
(1986) 		In Real Time: Live '87
(1987)

Expletive Delighted! is a 1986 album by British folk rock band Fairport Convention, their fifteenth studio album since their debut in 1968. It is the band's only album consisting solely of instrumental tracks, despite the claim "Lyric sheet enclosed" on the album cover.[1]

Ric Sanders, who had played on some tracks on the previous album Gladys' Leap, was invited to join Fairport full-time, as was Maartin Allcock; the result, according to Dave Pegg,

"Ric and Maart were both writing stuff, composing these great instrumental pieces. I thought we should do something immediately, catch the moment. So we put out an all instrumental album, Expletive Delighted. I really wanted to show everyone just what these new chaps could do, how brilliantly they could play. ... The line-up meant we could tour again, it meant we had new material for Cropredy, it meant there was a Fairport again. So from 1986 on, Cropredy wasn't just a reunion festival any more. We had a band."[2]

This new lineup would last for the next eleven years, the most stable of all of Fairport's configurations to that point.[3]

Reception

Allmusic's reviewer described Expletive Delighted! as "alternately enjoyable and maddening", criticising the prominence of Dave Mattacks's drums in the mix, while praising "Portmeirion" and the title track as "delicate and beautiful as any work that this version of the band has done".[4]

Track listing

Side one
  1. "The Rutland Reel/Sack the Juggler" (Ric Sanders) - 3:20
  2. "The Cat on the Mixer/Three Left Feet" (Maartin Allcock) - 3:37
  3. "Bankruptured" (Dave Pegg) - 3:04[5]
  4. "Portmeirion" (Ric Sanders) - 5:21
  5. "Jams O'Donnell's Jigs" (Dave Pegg) - 2:48[6]
Side two
  1. "Expletive Delighted" (Ric Sanders) - 1:55
  2. "Sigh Beg Sigh Mor" (O' Carolan) - 7:18[7]
  3. "Innstuck" (Maartin Allcock) - 2:08
  4. "The Gas Almost Works" (John Kirkpatrick) 1:58
  5. "Hanks for the Memory" (various, arrangement by Jerry Donahue) - 4:38[8][9]
    1. "Shazam!" (Duane Eddy, Lee Hazlewood)
    2. "Pipeline" (Bob Spickard, Brian Carmen)
    3. "Apache" (Jerry Lordan)
    4. "Peter Gunn" (Henry Mancini)

Release history

Personnel

Fairport Convention
Additional musicians on "Hanks for the Memory"
Technical

References

  1. ^ a b "Expletive-Delighted - The Fairport Convention Discography Website Sponsored by Musikfolk Limited (www.musikfolk.com)". www.fcfansite.fsnet.co.uk. Archived from the original on 9 May 2008. Retrieved 21 November 2009.
  2. ^ "Dave Pegg recounts Fairport's history - Fairport Convention's official website". www.fairportconvention.com. Archived from the original on 16 May 2008. Retrieved 21 November 2009.
  3. ^ "History: Simon Nicol writes about Fairport - Fairport Convention's official website". www.fairportconvention.com. Archived from the original on 11 February 2009. Retrieved 21 November 2009.
  4. ^ "allmusic ((( Expletive Delighted! > Overview )))". www.allmusic.com. Retrieved 21 November 2009.
  5. ^ A reworking of the track that appeared on Tipplers Tales in 1978
  6. ^ A reworking of the track that appeared on The Bonny Bunch of Roses in 1977
  7. ^ the original is titled "Sí Bheag, Sí Mhór"
  8. ^ a b "Expletive-Delighted - The Fairport Convention Discography Website". Ian & Stephanie Rennie. Archived from the original on 9 May 2008. Retrieved 21 November 2009.
  9. ^ Recorded in August 1985 and Ric Sanders violin overdubbed 1986

External links

Fairport Convention
Authority control databases
Categories